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Untitled Article
Not only his will called it once into being : but tbat it goes on , and is developed according to established laws , this is the work of one supreme will , acting without intermission , and all-powerful , the will of God . In the infinitely various phenomena of the external world , the ever-active power of the Creator reveals itself in different degrees , more or less under a veil ; but in the human soul , its noblest work on earth , there is a present divinity . It
is created to receive a ray of the eternal , uncreated light , and to be illuminated by it . It is designed to be a temple in which the power of the Highest dwells and works ; and this power of the eternal , this ray of the uncreated light , manifests itself in the soul of man by the religious feeling . Hence the Scriptures represent those affections of our nature which look higher than the sensible world , as the immediate work of God ; and the power of God which creates them in our hearts is denominated the Holy Spirit . This is a
divine influence , not a separate existence ; it issues from God as light from the luminary , as the beam from the sun ; it penetrates into our soul , and acts there , without being a part of its proper nature , and without being subject to its dominion . This influence is not , however , compulsory , but requires the concurrence and obedience of the will . Since it is ascribed to all the pious under the former dispensations , Luke i . 41 , 67 , ii . 25 , and there is frequent mention of it in the Old Testament ; and since Jesus supposes its
existence in his disciples during his ministry , the promise of the Spirit , and its consequent effusion related in the Acts of the Apostles , must be explained only of a greater fulness and a higher measure of the heavenly gift than was possessed before by the disciples . This holy power is indeed influential in all men ; but when the soul has resigned itself to the impressions of sense , and in its thoughts and will serves only the desires of sense , it disregards the divine monitor , represses its high instigations , casts off its own
dignity , and , degrading itself to the merely animal life , is continually less capable of the divine . This condition is affirmed by Paul , 1 Cor . ii . 14 . Since man receives the impressions of the sensible world earlier than the influence from above , and their influence is already strong before he receives the divine , he is therefore prone to be subject to it . In this consists the sinfulness
of the soul of man ; and for this reason he needs to be redeemed from the power of sin . This is the regeneration , John iii . 3 , which is never accomplished in us upon earth , because we have to strive continually in different degrees against the passions of sense ; and the exhortation of the Apostle is always applicable to us , Eph . iv . 23 , Be ye renewed in the spirit of your mind- ' "
On Practical Religion . * ' In relation to the sensible world , virtue consists much in self-denial , the restraining the sensual desires as far as they contend against the law of God . Its fruit is moral purity , the removing of what is unholy out of the heart , and mind , and will . 1 John iv . 18 . But in relation to the objects of religion , virtue has the nature of love , and this is the soul's most active life , its
noblest affection and highest manifestation . It comes forth from the deepest region of the soul , and aspires towards the holiest heights of our moral des tination . 1 John iv . 7 , Rom . v . 5 . In the Scriptures it is rightly named the first and chief command , the royal law , the sum of all the commandments , and the fulfilling of the law ; for all the virtues are but different expressions of the one true and genuine virtue , and what proceeds not from this source deserves not the name of virtue . From the love of God issue philanthropy and friendship ; because what we truly esteem in another is
Untitled Article
Letters from Germany . 295
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1831, page 295, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2597/page/7/
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